How to Save a Life
by aldeiah
Summary: What would you do if you dreamt of someone's death? Would you prevent it from happening? She decided she would, but can she really save him from his fate? RyomaXOC
1. Prologue

Author's Note: This is my first Prince of Tennis fanfic. Please read and review. I don't own Prince of Tennis. If I did, Ryoma would always be drinking Inui juice whether he likes it or not... Review please...

* * *

The sound of the screeching tires will never cease to haunt her; it will forever be engraved in her memory. Every time she will hear the sound of rubber against concrete, the events of that fateful day would play in her mind. 

"Wait up! I have to tie my shoelaces." she bent down and began knotting her untied shoelaces.

"Hm, ok. I'll go right ahead." he put his hands inside his pockets and proceeded to cross the street. He really was in a hurry; he had wanted to go there with her for a long time now and the only thing that was stopping them were her darned shoelaces.

"Eh? Uh… there, I'm done. Hey! I said wait up!" she stood up and followed him across the street.

She stepped off the sidewalk and onto the road. In the blink of an eye, everything became blurred. She only had a vague impression of what happened next.

She remembered seeing his face full of distress at the last moments before the blur, his hazel eyes wide open. There were only a few shots of the events that took place followed by the screeching of tires.

After that, he was already in her arms.

"Somebody call an ambulance! The boy had been hit!" People gathered around them, their faces showing concern as if to comfort the girl who had been left alive by the accident.

She felt hot tears stream down her face. Yes, that was the word, stream, for she could not stop it. She stared at the lifeless body she had cradled for some time now before hugging it.

It felt cold.

* * *

Her body had jolted her up into a sitting position. She glanced at her bedside; it was four in the morning and she was in her room. She placed her hand on her cheek; it felt so warm and wet. She had indeed cried those tears, just like in her dream.

A gust of wind blew across her room and she wondered if the open window had caused her body to feel cold or if it was her dream that sent chills throughout her body. In her dream, somebody had died in her arms. She had felt the lifeless body against her own and the feeling would not let her be.

In her dream, Echizen Ryoma had died in her arms.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: Please review... I don't own PoT D

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The bell had rung and it signaled the start of first period. For most of the students, the bell was their enemy when placed before a subject and the lunch and dismissal bell were their only friends. That had been true for Rein but this particular morning she was glad that the bell had rung for two reasons. One, it shook her out of deep thoughts and reason number two had just entered the classroom.

"Oi Echizen, what took you so long?" Horio said in his usual sort of annoying voice. He was asking because both of them attended the morning training for the tennis club members.

"It's nothing."

Usually, seeing Echizen would mean nothing but this very particular morning, she was happy to see him. To be more specific, she was happy to see him alive.

Echizen walked past her and took his seat two chairs behind her. She glanced at Echizen behind her again just to make sure and Horio, who was conveniently seated between them, took notice.

"Eh? Sugihara-san, what is it?"

"Uh, it's nothing." Surprise was written on her face when Horio had caught her glancing at Echizen.

Though no one had done it yet, she would definitely hate it if she would be mistaken to have feelings for Echizen. Although, she wouldn't deny having had a crush on Echizen once; back when the two of them were in middle school. They went to the same school in America and Rein was just one of the many girls who admired Ryoma and after some time, she grew tired of it and resorted to forgetting him. After middle school, Ryoma went to Japan to continue his studies. Two weeks after, Rein enrolled in Seishun Gakuen; their family was forced to move in Japan because her brother wanted to study in Japan. She was only thankful they weren't classmates; well, not until they entered high school.

Putting those things aside, Rein really wanted to tell Horio straight what had been bothering her by replying, "Oh, I was just making sure Echizen was alive, that's all." but she had already told Horio that it was nothing.

Really now, who could blame her? A while ago, she had woken up from a seemingly bad dream; she had been involved in an incident she never imagined herself to be a part of in the first place. Someone had died in her arms and, somehow, it gave her feelings of guilt that she hadn't done anything to prevent it from happening.

Their teacher hit the blackboard with his pointing stick and the class sat up straight.

She tried to shake those thoughts away. She need not be frightened anymore anyway; Ryoma was alive and, well, sleeping.

Heck, it was English class; he could easily get a high grade from it without even attending a single class. _That guy_, she thought to herself. She always wondered how Ryoma could be so good at many things; he was good at tennis, table tennis, English and, as she heard from Horio, bowling too. Sometimes she would be amazed, but there were days when she wasn't in the mood and, instead, would think he was weird.

_He's weird._ And today was one of those days.

The day before, their English teacher had given them a project to be worked on by pairs, and, to the dismay of the whole class, she had been paired with Ryoma. It went something like this:

- poNta -

"We will be having a project and it will be a pair work. You'll need to find a book containing creative literature and another one containing utilitarian literature. Evaluate the book using the conditions we discussed last meeting and pass the evaluation to me by the end of the month." announced our English teacher. "I will be assigning the pairs."

The class started talking in hushed tones. Something like, "Oh, I wanna be paired with Ryoma-sama…", "Wow me too!", "Kyaaa! Ryoma-sama!"

The class was only silenced when the teacher started calling out the names.

"Horio Satoshi with…" he slid his finger down his clipboard. "Kīto Mai."

"Eh?" Horio blurted out and turned to look at the girl named Mai who looked just as surprised as he was. It was obvious that even Horio wanted to be paired up with Echizen, the one who can get an A on their English test without even listening to the discussion the day before.

With each name announced that was neither preceded nor followed by 'Echizen Ryoma', there was a sigh or two.

"Sugihara Rein…"

_Please not with Echizen. Please._

After going to Japan to study, she made a promise; she vowed that she would never have feelings for Ryoma again. She knew that being close to Ryoma would probably awaken the feelings that she had just put to sleep.

She shook her head; she was being cheesy again and she hated that. She turned to their teacher while repeating a phrase in her mind, _Not Echizen, not Echizen._

"You're with Echizen Ryoma."

She stuck out her tongue at no one in particular. She felt insulted; it was as if someone or something was playing tricks on her. _Didn't I clearly say, 'not Echizen'?_

Her teacher's announcement was followed by remarks like:

"Sugihara-san is so lucky."

"I envy her."

"It's unfair, I don't think she even likes Ryoma-sama."

"And you know another thing that's unfair? They're both good at English."

"Oh, yeah. You're right."

"Now make sure to work with your partner; help each other out."

Ryoma's admirers definitely did not like Ryoma being paired with girls aside from themselves, especially not with Rein because, well, she didn't even like _Ryoma-sama_. Also, the boy population of the class were against it too because they wanted to get a high grade in English too and Ryoma or Rein could definitely show them the way.

- poNta -

And that's what happened. The pair was indeed to the class's dismay.

…

RING!!!

Ryoma had just woken up and their English teacher had just left the classroom.

"Eh? Echizen, you just woke up?" It's as if Horio hadn't been used to it yet.

"Heh…" Ryoma rubbed the last traces of sleep in his eyes and suddenly, the girls' eyes around him lit up. It's as if in their minds he was labeled 'DREAMBOY'.

Rein walked towards Horio.

"Ne, Horio-san, what's the next class?"

"Hm…" he paused to think. "Physics."

"Oh, okay." she paused and then smiled. "Can save me a seat near the teacher's table, again? Please." she gave Horio her closest thing to the _puppy dog_ look, her _sheepish_ grin. _Well, it's still based on an animal; sheepish, sheep, get it?_ Rein thought to herself.

Horio sighed, "Sure, sure. As always."

"Thank you!" And she ran off.

Horio, who was still beside Ryoma, sighed again. "I'm used to it anyway."

"Hm. Why does she do that anyway?" Ryoma asked Horio.

"There are days when she wakes up late and skips breakfast and right after first period she runs off to buy something to eat. During those days, she'll ask me to save her a seat near the teacher's table during Physics, a seat at the back of the classroom when it's Math and for all the other subjects, a seat in the middle column of the classroom."

"Heh… How long have you been doing this?"

"Well, this is the third year Sugihara-san and I are classmates, so technically I now have two years of seat-saving experience." He didn't say it in his usual two-years-of-tennis-experience voice; he said it in a Sugihara-san-has-been-using-me-for-two-years-now-but-i-guess-it's-okay kind of way. Ryoma noticed it.

They have reached the classroom and Horio took a seat near the teacher's table and placed his bag on a chair near it. For some reason, the teachers never noticed a student was missing whenever a seat didn't seem unoccupied even if a bag was occupying it; this was to Horio's amazement.

The teacher arrived, greeted the class and started writing something on the board. While he was writing, Rein entered the classroom unnoticed by the teacher.

"I got you the same Ponta that Echizen usually drinks, is that okay?" she told Horio whisperingly as she handed him the Ponta can with the grape picture on it.

"Eh? I told you. You don't have to get me anything."

"Don't worry. At least both of us will get in trouble if the teacher catches you because I'll be eating when you are."

"Eh?" Horio was taken aback by Sugihara's reply.

"What?"

"Uh, it's nothing." Horio turned to look away from her as he felt his face blush a bit.

Unknown to Horio, Echizen could see what's happening.

Yes, he could see _exactly_ what was happening.


End file.
